Ashes Come Back to Me
by Jimmy the Gothic Egg
Summary: A lifetime can pass in an instance, or, in this case, seven pages.


Written while rocking to KT Tunstall's Acoustic Explosion, except I can't find the lyrics. This makes me a sad Jimmy. What makes Jimmy happy is that she now has an excuse to post in the zutara100 community, which, if you're not apart of, you should be.

_Ashes Come Back to Me_

There were many things she did not know about Zuko when he first showed up at the front porch of her village with an army behind him. She did not know he was a prince, she did not know he was an exiled prince, she did not even think he was anything but another soldier come to take everything away.

Mostly, she did not know that deep inside he was a good person.

---

Of course, his uncle would make fun of him for this later, but Zuko had tied a girl to a tree.

He had to say, in all honesty, that was the highlight of the journey so far. Chasing Avatars, freezing in the South, constantly getting beaten by a bunch of kids… Knowing one of them was figuratively under his knife (not that he'd hold a knife to a girl, unless it was a certain evil-bitchy-princess-who-needed-to-have-a-rusty-sword-plunged-into-her) was kind of a plus to the rest of his life.

He wasn't wrong about the uncle thing though.

---

Traveling down the coast line, Zuko slept beneath the curtain of the Fire Nation poster, his entire world a haze of red. He picked up the necklace he'd stolen from the girl—Katara, he thought he'd picked up her name, with all that yelling and dodging of water whips—and traced the slow curves of symbol.

That night, Zuko would dream of a tidal wave and water up to his waist.

It would be the first good dream he would have in two years.

---

Katara was slightly flattered when she learned she was the one being tracked.

She could've lived without Sokka's stupid comments.

---

It was starting to get a little less about protecting Aang, a little less about keeping the prince at bay, a little less about saving the world (because he wasn't the biggest problem anymore), but more about the smug feeling she got whenever she knocked his ass to the ground, or the brief wave of warmth that washed over her when a fireball came too close (because he wasn't even aiming anymore, but she wasn't either), or the tingles she got when he was holding her down (in the most gentlemanly way possible.)

And it was always kind of cute when he got that distressed, I'm-so-frustrated-I'm-going-back-to-my-ship-or-cave-or-wherever-I'm-living-now-and-sulk look.

---

The mask was blue and looked like the demons who mother used to tell her about, the ones that hid in animal bodies and made them wild. It was the monster that had made her scared to go near the seals and penguins when she was all alone.

And yet knowing who was behind it made it all better.

---

She thought she saw something on the shore, settled on the base of the stone dock. She was still mourning the loss of one important person, and the sight of the blue grin curled back in a devil's grin staring up through the clear water made her pray no one else was thinking of leaving her.

---

There was an absence in the air. A loss. And that was when Katara realized her water-bending was getting sloppy with no annoying prince to battle.

---

Zuko had given up on his original quest. Two—three years down the drain, but they had taught him something. Loyalty to one's country is not so important when that country is destroying the world. There are more important things, like saving lives, making friends, and having a family that wasn't trying to kill you.

He still wasn't teaching the Av—Aang. Iroh could do that instead.

---

Katara giggled as once again Aang screwed up. There was no yelling from the frustrated prince, who just slapped his forehead and corrected his form, muttering something about how his uncle wasn't that old and broken, and teaching little kids wasn't his style anyway.

She snorted and wondered what his style was anyway.

---

"Peasant."

"Ponytail boy."

"Fish."

"Pain."

"At least my only weapon isn't a jug of water."

"At least I'm not the prince of Angst!"

"I—god—damn it I'll burn you in your sleep!"

She saunters off, laughing.

---

It was an honest mistake! He hadn't _meant_ to kiss her; it just happened.

It was harder to explain this with Sokka's blade pressed to his throat.

---

Katara smiled.

"You've gotten awfully good at dodging boomerangs. At least you've learned they always come back."

Zuko just huffed and rubbed the back of his head.

---

The kiss wasn't quite as accidental this time around.

---

It's the end of the world. There's fire blazing all around. Enemies surround you and one wrong move means the end of your life.

"Well," Katara said. "We're screwed."

"Funny," Zuko answers, staring at her for what felt like the last time, taking in every detail in case one of them found the passage to the spirit world in the midst of things. "I thought you were the optimist."

---

It turns out, they've won.

It turns out, there are sacrifices on the way to victory.

It turns out, the world isn't such a pretty place after all.

Katara watches as Zuko gathers the ashes of the Fire Palace in his hands. It's a private moment, and she turns away to let him alone.

---

"Are you going to leave?" Zuko asks.

She stares at him, trying to decipher exactly what he was thinking.

"Absolutely not."

---

The nightmares are shared between the two, but there is comfort to be found in the arms' of each other.

---

"Who needs bodyguards when your wife is the meanest water master of all?"

---

"So the world's saved."

"Yep."

"All is well in the world."

"Yep."

"Civilizations are being rebuilt."

"Yep."

Katara gave a sigh of relief. "Good. I thought I was the only one who was bored."

---

Zuko's got an idea.

"You said you were bored," he pressed.

The Fire Lady shook her head. "What're you gonna do when we're caught?"

He grinned madly. "That's the fun of it."

---

After a while, they stop questioning the disappearance of the Fire Lord and Lady, and the two nameless travelers find it less amusing with no guards searching frantically for you.

---

Sokka pokes Zuko, who does not respond. His blank stare is not going away.

"What'd you do to him?" Sokka asked.

Katara is practically singing. "He's gonna be a daddy!"

There's a strange look on Sokka's face. "Wait… Who's having the baby?"

She slaps him, and Zuko laughs.

---

"Zuko, stop corrupting our child."

---

"Sokka, stop corrupting our child."

---

Aang proves good with kids, and Katara relaxes in the South Pole while Zuko freezes his ass off.

---

The assassin is caught, and the water-bender's face pales when she learns of who the target was. Zuko holds her close, and she demands extra guards in her child's bedroom.

---

Aang's confused. "I thought we stopped the war."

Zuko shakes his head and remembers past history lessons. "Peace only lasts long enough for another war to start."

---

Katara doesn't fight for the sake of her child. She still has to explain to her son why his father isn't home, and how sometimes we only listen to the fools.

---

The funeral pyre burns, and it's not just the smoke that makes her tear.

---

Her son is safer in the South, she says, with his uncle and his great-grandmother, who refuses to die and probably won't any time soon, and the trip down is reminiscent of a long time ago, when she was just a kid who liked to splash in puddles.

Sokka asks about the new necklace around her neck. She holds it close and can smell the ashes held within.

---

Katara watches her son become mesmerized by the water-benders' work, and smiles softly to herself. She doesn't tell him that in a year or so until he's back among fire benders, acting as their ruler.

---

It's not until the pretty little dark-haired girl clutches the Fire Lord's arm and he looks down at her with a secret smile that Katara thinks everything's going to be okay.

---

No one gets their happily ever after, but Katara does get her final end, and she thinks she can see a shallow scar and smell the soft smoke that used to brush her in all different ways, wrong or right.

---

It's centuries later, and the blue eyed girl spots a boy across the room. She smiles at him, walks over, and tells him she likes the ponytail.

It's life all over again.

**Notes:**

Fuck.

That's much longer than I thought it would be. I just went through their _entire life._ With _seven pages._

Yeah, and I'm working on a second piece inspired by the same song, and another piece inspired by the second song on that CD.

I don't know if there's a Zutara Olympics, but I think I should at least get a participant trophy.


End file.
